Wait For It.
Wanna hear something funny?
I was on a Zoom call with about 40 leaders from around the country yesterday... Wait for it. At some point in the call, I needed to plug in my laptop… Wait for it. I shut my video down in order to move around my office, locate my charger and plug it in… Wait for it. When I plugged it in and looked up at my screen, there it was. Our Crossroads Farm Zoom video profile picture, normally a CRF logo, was instead, a picture of Bert Spalding, our RCI Director.
I realized how confusing it would be for the other participants to see me one moment and Bert the next.
Notwithstanding his scholarly and distinguished good looks, we look nothing alike.
Alexa recently picked up a conversation between my oldest daughter and a friend of hers, and then in a random act of control, broadcast it to our car. You may now insert your favorite conspiracy, matrix or antichrist story here.
My point is not any of those things, which may, or may not be applicable. It is simply to say, whenever technology is added to our communications, we have added another interpreter to the conversation. My question through each one of these scenarios was, “How did that just happen?”
Have you ever felt like this?
How did my marriage end up with this much distance between my spouse and I? How did my kids miss that value?
We, at CRF, are in a constant effort of exegeting student culture. Words change. Pastimes change. Identities and passions change, and we are to make sense of it, determine ministry courses of action, and apply God’s truth to a generation. It is a herculean task… Wait for it… If I am doing it.
I am in the process of reapplying my knowledge of the Holy Spirit to my job, my marriage and my roles as father, boss and communicator. I have known, at least cognizantly, His role and partly His function. I rely on the relationship, but sometimes ignore his beckoned call. There must be a spiritual, supernatural involvement from God for us to make spiritual, supernatural changes in our lives, our relationships and our communities.
Here is a reminder for you.
He teaches us how to do the things He has called us to.
But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. John 14:26
My problem is my own propensity to solve my own problem with my own wisdom, through my own strength, in my own time. Frankly, I end up putting the wrong face on a problem and communicate through the wrong channels too many times.
Psalm 46:10 says we are to, “be still and know that He is God."
My pace always demands my solutions, but God has another principle at work in my life these days...
Wait for it.
That’s it. Submit my pace to the Holy Spirit and do not rely on my own solutions. I tend to get a more correct picture and deliver a correct message to the right audience.
By the way, I no longer refer to my home system as Alexa. I call her Hal.